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"Marriage Protection Week" writings: #1
This is one of the pieces I'm intending to submit to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kythryne's The Right to Marry: GLBT and Polyamorous People Speak Out About Marriage Equality project.
A couple of years ago, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had one of those "Defense of Marriage Act" things rattling around in the legislature. There was a public hearing for it and a few other bills before the Judiciary Committee, upon which my representative sits; the public was invited to attend and offer comment.
I went. I spent much of the time I was there observing the arguments and trying to compose my speech for when they called my name. I had to leave before I gave my little speech; I was depending onteinedreugan to come and pick me up, it was getting late, and I kept having really dramatic nosebleeds which sort of put a crimp on my presentability in a public persona.
This is what I would have said, more or less, if I'd been able to speak.
This is a story about my partner, and myself.
We were high school sweethearts. After a bit of hit or miss interaction lasting the better part of a year, we finally wound up in a relationship in the festivities surrounding Homecoming of my senior year. We were each other's first lovers, first successful long-term relationships; we lived that strange American myth of the summer romance movie.
We navigated the trials of a very difficult summer when my parents separated, and worked to maintain our relationships as a partnership when I came to college here in Massachusetts. Despite the difficulties in maintaining a long-distance relationship, we survived.
My partner supported me when I had to drop out of school, through my parents' divorce, through the trials and turmoils of trying to get jobs and trying to survive.
After successfully graduating with an engineering degree, my partner looked for work, and found a job in Massachusetts. We moved in together, first in the apartment I was sharing with friends, then an apartment alone, and finally we bought a house. Our hopes from our teenage years of spending our lives together are being realised every day.
teinedreugan and I were married by a Justice of the Peace in the living room of our house in Lynn on 21 December, 2000, five years to the day after he proposed to me. I wore a red dress.
Because my partner, my high school sweetheart, is a man, we could do that.
I remember reading once about a woman who had a lovely engagement ring, and a child asked her about it. They talked a little while, and the child asked her when the wedding was; the woman said that they hadn't set a date yet, they were having a long engagement until things got better for them. The child wished her happiness, and she went away with those earnest well-wishings and the knowledge that she did not know when a date could be set for her to marry her partner.
Her partner is not a man.
The Massachusetts DOMA was procedurally killed and never made it to a vote. As I write this, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is deliberating (and well overdue for a result) a case that would grant same-sex couples equal access to marriage in the Commonwealth.
kythryne's The Right to Marry: GLBT and Polyamorous People Speak Out About Marriage Equality project.A couple of years ago, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had one of those "Defense of Marriage Act" things rattling around in the legislature. There was a public hearing for it and a few other bills before the Judiciary Committee, upon which my representative sits; the public was invited to attend and offer comment.
I went. I spent much of the time I was there observing the arguments and trying to compose my speech for when they called my name. I had to leave before I gave my little speech; I was depending on
teinedreugan to come and pick me up, it was getting late, and I kept having really dramatic nosebleeds which sort of put a crimp on my presentability in a public persona.This is what I would have said, more or less, if I'd been able to speak.
This is a story about my partner, and myself.
We were high school sweethearts. After a bit of hit or miss interaction lasting the better part of a year, we finally wound up in a relationship in the festivities surrounding Homecoming of my senior year. We were each other's first lovers, first successful long-term relationships; we lived that strange American myth of the summer romance movie.
We navigated the trials of a very difficult summer when my parents separated, and worked to maintain our relationships as a partnership when I came to college here in Massachusetts. Despite the difficulties in maintaining a long-distance relationship, we survived.
My partner supported me when I had to drop out of school, through my parents' divorce, through the trials and turmoils of trying to get jobs and trying to survive.
After successfully graduating with an engineering degree, my partner looked for work, and found a job in Massachusetts. We moved in together, first in the apartment I was sharing with friends, then an apartment alone, and finally we bought a house. Our hopes from our teenage years of spending our lives together are being realised every day.
teinedreugan and I were married by a Justice of the Peace in the living room of our house in Lynn on 21 December, 2000, five years to the day after he proposed to me. I wore a red dress.Because my partner, my high school sweetheart, is a man, we could do that.
I remember reading once about a woman who had a lovely engagement ring, and a child asked her about it. They talked a little while, and the child asked her when the wedding was; the woman said that they hadn't set a date yet, they were having a long engagement until things got better for them. The child wished her happiness, and she went away with those earnest well-wishings and the knowledge that she did not know when a date could be set for her to marry her partner.
Her partner is not a man.
The Massachusetts DOMA was procedurally killed and never made it to a vote. As I write this, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is deliberating (and well overdue for a result) a case that would grant same-sex couples equal access to marriage in the Commonwealth.